


Coffee, Tea, or Me?

by Hartmannclan



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Childhood, Coffee Shop Trope, Coffee Shops, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Fluff and Angst, HEA Guaranteed, Misunderstandings, Pining, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Rey possibly OOC, Schoolyard Nemesis, author doesn't actually drink coffee..., boys are gross, but are they really? - Freeform, but kinda one-sided enemies, she has a family and is happy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-13 23:20:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29658846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hartmannclan/pseuds/Hartmannclan
Summary: Ben and Rey attend school together as children. She thinks he's a "horrid boy" and her sworn enemy. Years later, they meet again as adults. Will old resentments cause her to miss seeing the man he's become?
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 18
Kudos: 29





	1. Schoolyard Nemesis...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SkyeDreamer223](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyeDreamer223/gifts).



> This is a birthday gift for a Reylo bestie! She requested enemies-to-lovers and pranks. I softened both, but think this will still hit the mark. Happy Birthday!!
> 
> Now, I've gotta add a CW/ dissection. It is in the third section (sixth grade), but it isn't "done" in that I don't even write where they start cutting. It is just the focus of Science class that day. Hopefully, nobody is too squeamish!

**Kindergarten**

  
  


A worm...there was a squirmy worm...in her lunch box. Rey’s skin crawled along with the worm’s wriggling. _Who…?_ she thought. Looking up, Rey caught sight of her classmate, Ben, standing across the playground from her, trying not to look like he was watching her. _And I shared my snack with him too!_ she hissed to herself. _I thought he wanted to be my friend,_ she mourned silently, angrily wiping away a tear. She looked down once again at her Care Bear lunch box and recoiled slightly. _It_ was still there. 

There were a great many things six-year-old Reyanna Samantha Andor was fiercely proud of, and one of them was being her daddy’s big brave girl. _I will not let that poopyhead see me afraid!_ she inwardly vowed, as she reached into her lunch box, small fingers trembling, and scooped out the long slimy tormentor. 

Rey glanced around the swingset to find a place to drop the worm. She didn’t really want to hurt it, after all, it wasn’t the worm’s fault it was utterly ‘usgusting. She was also very aware that _he_ expected her to scream and make a fuss. _No way, uh-uh._

Fighting her natural inclination to squeal and chuck the creature, she carefully got up from her seat and walked over to the old elm tree where the dirt was soft from the recent rains. 

“Goodbye Mr. Worm!” she hollered loudly. “I hope you find a Mrs. Worm and be happy forever!!” Rey didn’t want that Ben Solo to think he’d scared her. 

She went back to the playground and, gathering her lunch up, looked straight at Ben and stuck her tongue out at him. _He was a big doodyhead!_ She swore to herself that she’d never forgive him forever n’ever! 

* * *

**Third Grade**

  
  


“What d'ya get?!” Rose asked, plopping down next to Rey. 

“I don’t know! I wanted to wait for you,” Rey exclaimed. 

It was Valentine’s Day, and the sounds of over-sugared children filled the air. Everyone had delivered their cards and their teacher, Ms. Holdo, had said they could look inside their boxes now. 

Rey pulled a dinosaur card out first.

“You are Dino-mite!” she read. “It’s from Mitaka. Look at this cool tattoo it came with!” She promptly licked the back and stuck it to her arm. 

“I got a Princess card from Kaydel.” Rose held up an Ariel valentine. “Hope your day is filled with song. And look!” She held up a RingPop, “Score!”

The two girls rummaged through their boxes, squealing over candy and examining the three handmade ones. Rey had made hers out of her mum’s scrapbook paper and stickers. Each one crafted painstakingly...even _his_. 

Rey had been going to skip Ben, but her mum caught on when she double-checked the class list. Rey had wanted to use black paper and spider stickers, but once again her mum spoiled it. They had finally agreed on a blue heart covered in airplanes. Ben’s dad had once spoken at Career Day about being an airline pilot. 

“Last one!” Rey chimed, digging deep into her box. When she drew out a lollipop, she smiled and turned to show her friend, but her joy quickly turned into yelling instead.

“Rose!” she wailed, holding the lolly as far from her body as physically possible. “There’s a _dead bug_ in it! It’s got tiny feet things and-“ she gagged for a moment, unable to go on. 

Rose calmly took the sucker from her and inspected it. 

“This is both gross and cool. Can I keep it? I wanna give it to my sister.” Rose’s eyes twinkled mischievously.

“Yeah. Who gave it to me?” Rey asked face darkening into a tiny thundercloud. 

“Ummm.” Rose inspected the tag. “He who must not be named,” she whispered dramatically.

_And mum wants me to be nice to this...this Voldemort?! Never!_

Some day she’d pay _that boy_ back…

* * *

**Sixth Grade**

Rey pulled the curtains open to a dismal, rainy morning and pouted. At least the weather fit her mood for school today. It was the worst day of the school year…dissection day. This being sixth grade, it was the eyeball. Rey's skin crawled at the thought of touching the squishy blob. She just knew it would stare at her wherever she moved. If only after could squirrel into her blankets and go back to sleep. She'd asked her mom and dad to sign the form to get her excused but they felt it was "educational." 

No matter how many sighs she heaved or how slowly she ate her breakfast, her parents were unaffected. They'd dropped her off on the school steps without a backward glance. Maybe they were aliens in disguise after all. She was sure real human parents wouldn't be so cold-hearted.

By mid-morning Rey was sure she'd entered some kind of time warp. Art, English, History, and lunch period had all flown by, and now she was plopping into her assigned seat around a table with five other classmates; a covered plate in the middle. Rey could almost feel the menacing thing looking at her. 

Rose sat beside her, knee jiggling with excitement while Finn, her newest friend, sat on her left looking bored. Across from her sat her schoolyard nemesis. The teacher had assigned the groups and Ben had gotten placed at the table where his dad would be in charge of all the actual dissecting. _Great. I bet Ben throws the- circular object at her...if he gets the chance. Boys are so immature,_ she thought.

Rey twiddled her thumbs while sneaking glances out the corner of her eye at Mr. Solo, Ben's dad. His brown hair was sprinkled with gray and underneath, friendly brown eyes twinkled when he caught her observing him. She was surprised to find Ben's father so... normal looking. She'd almost expected him to be like Mr. Malfoy in Harry Potter; all mean and nasty inside. Not unlike his son who sat in the chair next to him, arms crossed and usual scowl evident. Apparently, dissection day wasn't his favorite either. Or maybe he just disliked being in the same group with her as much as she did with him. Determined to ignore him, she turned her attention back to Mr. Solo who had started the lesson at last.

"Alright, kids, let's see what we've got here," he said. He pulled the tray toward himself and lifted the lid off quickly. It almost seemed to Rey like he was in a hurry to get this done too. 

"Well," Mr. Solo said, "that's an eyeball all right. Does anyone remember what this part is?" he asked, pointing to the outside layer of the eyeball.

Rey's hand shot up into the air, "That's the cornea, Mr. Solo," she said with a smile.

"And you are correct, young lady!" Ben's dad replied. "What's your name?"

"My name is Rey."

"Oh-oh, you're Rey," he said with a smirk, as he nudged Ben in the side with his elbow. 

"Dad," he hissed. "Stop it!"

The other kids at the table giggled at the interaction between father and son and Rey felt mortified at being the center of attention.

Rose interrupted the awkward moment by speaking up, "Mr. Solo, it looks like we should already be on step three of the dissection. Everybody else is already slicing the eyeball open. Can we do that now?" 

Science was Rose's favorite subject, and she'd actually been looking forward to this day.

"What's that? Oh yeah, right, right thanks, kid. Guess we better get moving, eh slugger?" he said with the wink at Ben and a chin tip in her direction.

Rey didn't know why this kept happening to her; she'd hardly even spoken to Ben since the beginning of the school year. They'd been paired up to quiz each other before an upcoming Science test. What had begun as a simple class assignment had turned quickly into a war to see who could answer the most questions correctly. It ended with Rey smirking and then he'd...he'd… Rey felt her cheeks burn at the memory. Ben had _winked_ at her and all she had done was gape at him until the end of lunch period.

Afterward, she'd never been certain if she'd won fair and square, or if he'd thrown it to make her feel good about herself. Either way, he was a bigger pain in her opinion. It'd just made her angrier at him and added another item on the 'List of Things I Hate about Bean!'

She'd started thinking of him as Bean back in the fourth grade, after an _incident_ at lunchtime. He'd shot a green bean out of his nose and onto her favorite t-shirt, after choking on it. Rose swore it was because Rey had spoken to him, in a rare attempt to be friendly, and she had surprised him. Rey wasn't convinced that Ben would choke on a bean simply because she said hello. That would be ridiculous.

Anyway, it didn't matter. They would never be more than frenemies. He was simply the last boy on Earth she would ever choose to have anything to do with.

Rey sighed, squirming in her seat trying to appear to pay attention in class without actually doing so. This was the grossest dissection day yet. A glance at the clock on the wall over Ben's head revealed she only had to survive thirty more minutes. She could do this. She was an Andor. Tipping her head back to stare at the ceiling, she missed the look on Ben's face as her eyes drifted over him without recognition again. 

Grown-up Rey would have seen sadness sweep over his features like an incoming tide and heard his little sigh. Grown-up Rey would realize those funny looks he gave her were only because he was embarrassed to get caught watching her again. 

But eleven-year-old Rey didn't know any of this. Boys were a pain. Especially one Benjamin Solo… 


	2. One Grande Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey takes a chilly stroll through the park with happy consequences...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do check out the Moodboard/Prompt artwork by @littledaora. I've had this adorable sketch in my Twitter bookmarks since she shared it. I just knew I had to write a story about it one day. And here it is!
> 
> *Do note the time jump here! Ben is 26 now, and Rey is 25.*

<https://twitter.com/littledaora/status/1324877885195186177?s=20>

Fourteen Years Later…

Rey clutched her jacket more tightly across her chest as she battled the wind for what was left of her body heat. Summer was definitely over, she sighed. Rey thought longingly of the season just past and the warm days she’d spent working in her rooftop garden. Her best friend since grade school, Rose, had nicknamed her Lizzie Lizard and teased that she could always be found basking in the heat when everyone else would have, sensibly, run for shade and air-conditioned malls. 

Maybe giving in to the urge to stretch her legs after a long meeting hadn’t been such a good idea. She’d left in a hurry without so much as a glance outside, and her outfit was no match for a cool October breeze. Stubbornly, she continued her walk around City Park, her heels clicking in time with her chattering teeth. In front of the mirror that morning, her charcoal gray pencil skirt and white button-down shirt had felt empowered and eye-catching. _Now the only thing catching eyes is my red dripping nose_ , Rey thought ruefully.

And then, upon the breeze, came the tempting scent of hazelnuts. Hazelnuts meant coffee, and coffee was warm...so were coffee shops. Rey paused as the tantalizing scent floated past again. She scanned the storefronts edging the park, and there, between a mom and pop grocers’ and a bookshop was her new favorite coffee shop.

Rey scurried across the street as soon as the crosswalk allowed, and paused in front of the chalkboard sign advertising the establishment. Ben’s Cafe, it read. Someone had drawn a cartoon man holding out a giant mug of steaming coffee with the quote, “Coffee or me?” above it. _Someone has a sense of humor or an overinflated ego,_ she snorted quietly. 

Entering the café, she almost moaned aloud as the warmth began to seep back into her bones. What she needed now was a giant mug of something scalding. _And a muffin_ , she decided, eying the display of crumble-topped blueberry muffins. She joined the queue of customers and admired how the sunlight highlighted the exposed brick walls of the old building as she waited. Landscape watercolors had been hung on the walls, alongside some delicate calligraphy art. Some were quotes and others were single words, such as ‘Coffee’. Whoever the artist was had taken obvious care to recreate old fonts. 

A throat cleared beside her, catching her off guard. Apparently, the line had moved while she daydreamed.

“Can I take your order, Miss, or do you need a recommendation?” a deep voice asked her.

“Oh, yes!” she replied, spinning around, “A recommendation would be... lovely?” she said, stuttering to a pause.

Rey stared quizzically at the man behind the counter. _He is a fine specimen of manhood,_ her inner gremlin drooled, as she gazed at him. There was something familiar about him. His features weren’t classically handsome, the moles ensured that. And yet all together, he was memorable. Somehow she knew that he grew his dark hair long to hide his ears. Remembrance niggled at the back of her mind and, out of habit, she started chewing on a thumbnail while she got lost in her thoughts.

“Is that a question?” he asked.

“No. I’m sorry. I just- “ Rey halted her rambling with a shake of her head. “I would love a recommendation. I’ve never been here before...have I?” 

_This is going to drive me batty,_ she thought. _I’d swear I’ve met him before!_

“No, you haven’t been here before, Rey. I would’ve remembered that.” The cashier’s cheeks pinked and he suddenly became quite interested in the wood-grain of the countertop. 

“How- how did you know my name was Rey?” she asked. “I never told you.”

The cashier cleared his throat awkwardly and scratched at the countertop with a fingernail before meeting her gaze. 

“Hmmm, we went to school together for years, Rey. I take it you don’t remember me?” he said. “I wasn’t positive it was you when you walked in, but your accent gave it away. It’s, uh- hard to forget.” 

“I’m sorry, no, I don’t remember you; I am ashamed to say,” Rey blabbered on nervously. “I would have remembered if someone as hot as you walked by me!” she ended in a squeak, mortified at her lack of finesse. _Desperation is not an attractive quality, Rey!_ she cursed at herself. 

His eyebrows shot up in undisguised surprise at her confession. He nervously ran a hand through his hair and said, “My name is Ben, Ben Solo.” 

Rey stared into whiskey brown eyes that seemed to hold a hint of...regret? _Did he expect her to brush him off?_ His look reminded her of a scared rabbit. She knew that look!!

“Oh, my gosh. How could I miss it?!” she cried, recognition crossing her face, and a smile blooming. “ _Please,_ tell me you don’t have worms hidden in a crock behind that counter to throw in my drink?! I’d never recover this time,” she teased.

Ben’s face tinted pink at her playful banter, and Rey found it quite adorable; especially his apparent bashfulness. It was obvious he still remembered ‘The Great Worm Affair’ from kindergarten.

When he continued to stare at her without responding, she decided to have mercy on him.

“How about that recommendation? I’m chilled to the bone after an ill-considered walk through the park.”

Ben shifted on his feet, finding his tongue again. 

“Right. Coffee!” he half-shouted at her in his embarrassment. 

He cleared his throat and tried again, “How about one of our specialty cocoas? That’s my go-to when I’m freezing. Our cocoa is organic and free-trade. My favorite flavor is the sea-salted dark chocolate with a caramel drizzle and whipped cream.”

Rey almost drooled in anticipation.

“That sounds absolutely decadent. I’ll take a large, please. Oh, and one of those muffins too. They look scrumptious.”

Ben rang up her order and Rey watched him make her cocoa. She could tell it was all muscle memory at this point, he hardly looked up when he reached for the ingredients.

“Have you worked here long, Ben?” she asked.

“Since it opened,” he replied. “So, about five years, give or take. I only fill in for emergencies or when I need to get away from the account books,” he smirked, offering her the finished drink and muffin.

“Are you the accountant then?”

“Among other things. Did you happen to see the sign outside?” he asked.

“Yes I- oh. This is your store! I am _such_ an idiot. Can I blame it on the cold?” she pouted.

“Hmmm,” he hummed in agreement, “but it’ll cost you?” he said, boldly leaning across the counter between them.

Rey found her heart skip from his closeness. She could smell his cologne now, something inherently masculine and musky. Her inner gremlin howled with delight.

“And what do you want, Mr. Solo,” she questioned, her voice lowered. If he was going to up the ante she would gladly take the bet. 

“A chance,” was his unexpected reply.

“A chance to what?” 

She tipped her head to the side, curious.

Ben swallowed thickly before answering. Fate was giving him an unforeseen opportunity if he could just find twenty seconds of insanity to seize it.

“To be your friend. It’s all I ever really wanted, you know, back in school. To get to know you. You always were something special, Reyanna Andor,” he murmured, looking straight into her eyes.

Rey thought, _if there were ever a time to swoon, this would be it_. The dark-haired Viking gazed at her with such…yearning. _That’s what it was_ , she realized. _All those years ago. He didn’t hate me, he_ liked _me. How did I not see it?_

A brilliant smile blossomed on her face to Ben’s relief and delight. She wasn’t going to throw the cocoa back in his face.

“I’d like that, Ben. How about dinner this weekend?”

Without waiting for a reply, she grabbed a pen from the cash register and wrote her phone number on his hand- a totally immature move that left her giddy inside.

“See you then, Ben.”

And, with a wink, she walked out of the store and back towards the office. Maybe the weather wasn’t so horrible today after all. Not if it had brought her to his doorstep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big thanks to my friend, AnneAnna, who is helping beta my story :) Digital cookies for you :) Go check out her story 'Just One Kiss Before We Part'. It's my favorite Reylo she's written. So 1920's train travel romantic.

**Author's Note:**

> I just loooove writing this duo as children! I think this story will only hit about three chapters and I'll have it done in the next couple of weeks. In the next chapter we take a big time jump (fourteen years) to where all the lovely awkward meetings and angst will truly begin. Then we can revel in all the AU romcom glory! Woot!


End file.
